Proper 7 (A) + Equal in Christ + 6.25.17

-
(http://howard-carter.blogspot.com/2015/02/
for-those-of-you-in-cheap-seats-id-like.html)
M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Genesis 21:8–21; Ps. 86:1–10, 16–17; Romans 6:1b–11; Matthew 10:24–39)

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10:29-31).”
Preparing around this passage this week, I learned about Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who was chair of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which distributed funds to the family of each of those killed in the 2001 attacks on that day. He began with a formula typically used to calculate the value of peoples’ lifetime income, he then used his discretion to distribute as little as $250,000 dollars for lower level workers and as much as $7.1 million for CEOs and other executives.[1]
What is not mentioned in this story is how this played out demographically, but we can guess that there were a whole lot more blue collar workers of color than CEOs.
As Feinberg met with the families, he began to question this premise of our legal system, that no two lives have the same value. But he decided that the law was “in conflict with my growing belief in the equality of all life.”[2]
Later, he received a call from Virginia Tech with a request that he manage a fund to send funds to the families of the victims of that shooting in 2007. He replied, that he would, on the condition that “all victims-students and faculty alike-would receive the same compensation.”[3]
God has counted the hairs on our heads and we all count in God’s eyes- there is no one too small or insignificant to be important to God.
But sometimes we are reminded by the harsh realities of our lives that this is not the case for the world. By and large, CEOs get treated like a different class of being than custodians.  And this is not new. A case in point is our reading today from Genesis. To catch you up on the backstory, Sarah could not have kids, which was kind of a huge deal in ancient cultures where the survival of the race was always in question. So she has Hagar her slave step in (as many have pointed out, without asking Hagar what she thinks) and then when Hagar has a child things are a bit rocky. But even rockier when God’s amazing promise of a child is fulfilled to Sarah and Isaac is born to her. Now that Sarah has a legitimate child, she doesn’t want pesky Ishmael in the way. And Hagar and Ishmael are sent out into the desert with just a bit of food and water.
Womanist theologian (or African-American feminist theologian Renita Weems) tells us in her work Just a Sister Away about how Sarah and Hagar’s story points up some similarities between not just white women and women of color but also educated, highly skilled working women and women in menial labor jobs. She points out that Sarah could have advocated for Hagar rather than sent her away. That she could have been a sister to her.
She says that “for those of us who are educated and employed, there is always the potential to be a Sarai; and lamentably, there are far too many opportunities in a capitalist society for her to surface. Yet most of us are just a paycheck away from being a Hagar.”[4]
God tells us that our lives are worth more than many sparrows’, but how do we treat each other, our fellow sisters and brothers, with love and respect? And here I don’t mean just our literal brothers and sisters, because as Jesus describes there is also room for division there unfortunately, but how do we see each other as sisters and brothers. Whether you are the educated person paying attention to whether you treat the person you hire to clean your house or fix your toilet differently than your colleagues or whether you are the person who does the cleaning or the fixing and you have to look at how you can somehow see each person as your equal because in Christ that is what you are.
How can we, as Weems says, help a sister “whose back [is] up against a wall?”[5] Hagar was in that position and sadly it was not Sarah’s compassion but God’s intervention that saved Ishmael and her.
But the good news is that God did intervene! God intervened because even if to Sarah Isaac was the only important son, to God Ishmael was important, too. He too would be the father of a nation. He too was special in God’s eyes.
Each of us was sent here with a purpose. Not one of us, not even the most lost soul of us is without worth in God’s eyes. We were each sent here on a mission to share God’s love. So we must think about how to go about that every day. How to see that each one with whom we interact is here not just to clean or to be an administrator but to be a child of God. And to share God’s love with the world.
At the Episcopal Evangelism and social media course I took the other day, we learned that “we seek, name and celebrate Jesus’ loving presence in the stories of all people-then invite everyone to more.”
This is the kind of evangelism we are invited into as Episcopalians and as Christians in general. An evangelism that remembers that God has all sorts of stories – Sarah’s story and Hagar’s story and your story and my story, and we can all work to honor each other’s stories and support each other just that little bit more every day until there are no more young mothers with their backs against the wall and no more children crying to God in the desert for help. In the meantime, God keeps breaking in and reminding us of our foolishness in the case of our mistreatment of others and of our worth in his eyes, especially when we are mistreated.
Every one of us is precious. Black and brown lives and blue collar lives are precious just as we as a society have affirmed that educated and white lives are precious. Everyone who fits the rainbow in between is precious.  Let us lift up our sisters and brothers of every race and of every background and work toward a time when the divisions cease and we can dance with our God in peace and joy. Amen.


[1] Liddy Barlow, “Living the Word: June 25, 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time,” Christian Century, June 7, 2017, p.20.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Renita Weems, Just a Sister Away: Understanding the Timeless Connection between Women of Today and Women in the Bible (NY: Warner Books, 1988, 2005).
[5] Ibid.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Faith or Fear? Advent 1C

-
Melissa Campbell-Langdell All Santos, Oxnard Year C + Advent 1 (Jeremiah 33:14–16; Ps. 25:1–9; 1 Thess. 3:9–13; Luke 21:25–36) So… what are you going to do when you stand before the man with the holes in his hands? Now that may seem like a strange question to ask this first Sunday in December.  Surely, Pastor Melissa, we’re gearing up for jollity, not getting ready to meet our maker? But in a sense we are, always, all the time, waiting for Jesus, and I think that’s what Advent is really all about.  Reminding us that we are always waiting not just for the Christ Child to come and be born in our midst, but that we are also waiting for that awesome, if slightly scary Second Coming of Christ. And it is true that this passage talks about distress and the roaring of the waves.  And many looked at the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, that iconic image of the ocean-side theme park, including a Ferris Wheel, in the waves, and many said, this is something w...
Read more

Proper 20 (B) + A community of power + 9.23.18

-
Image
M. Campbell-Langdell All Saints, Oxnard (Proverbs 31:10–31; Ps. 1; James 3:13–4:3, 7–8ยช; St. Mark 9:30–37) Take a moment and think of the most powerful positive woman figure you know – in your life or in your favorite movie, show or book. Who is the woman who has most inspired you? Keep that image of that woman in mind as we look at this passage from Proverbs Chapter 31. Now here we see the verse “A capable wife who can find?” And all the feminists amongst us will be relieved to hear that a better translation from the Hebrew would be: “a woman of power” instead of a “capable wife.” [1] That changes things, doesn’t it? Then when we hear about this ideal ancient Hebrew woman’s exploits – her buying of lands, her trading prowess, her physical strength, even her domestic abilities such as weaving, and perhaps especially her kindness to the poor, we see strength and power in all of these. Of course, looking at this passage, this is not one woman but a concept of the most...
Read more

Proper21BAcceptingourownwounds29sept24

-
  Accepting our own and other’s wounds Mark 9: 38-50   St Michael’s, Isla Vista / All Saints Oxnard The Rev. Alene Campbell-Langdell; MCL additions   May I just start this morning by acknowledging that our Gospel reading is complex.   The images are startling (horrifying?) and the metaphors come almost too quickly to catch.   What is clear is that something serious is going on between Jesus and his disciples, and Jesus is using every means possible, including some pretty harsh language, to try to course correct.   To even begin to understand this passage, we need to back up to last week’s reading from Mark.   In that reading, the disciples are arguing with each other about who is the greatest and best disciple.   In response, Jesus gets a little kid, some commentators say “toddler,” and holds this child in his arms during the rest of the conversation.    The other part of the scene to keep in mind is that Jesus has just told...
Read more